Protector #5 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online

tables at a local diner, and neighbors took care of
me while she was at work. It wasn’t bad, and I don’t remember us having any big
problems, but then I was what, four?” He laughed a little and I smiled up at
him as he remembered.
    “Then one day my mom came home and said I
was going to have a new dad. Two days later, Will moved in. He was a tall guy,
a former Army sergeant who loved order and rules, and his guns. God, the man
loved his guns more than anything on earth. They scared the hell out of my
mother, but Will told her not to be such a fraidy cat
and took her out to the range to learn to shoot. She did it a few times, but
she always came back swearing she’d never hold another gun again. Will was nice
to me, he took me fishing and camping, and played ball with me, but about a
year after he moved in, my mom gave birth to my sister and nothing was ever the
same again. The sun rose and set on Claudia, and she was the cutest baby ever.
I loved having a little sister, she was sunshine and love.” He stopped for a
moment and bowed his head so that I couldn’t see his face. When he looked up
again, it was obvious that there was a lot of deep emotion buried beneath the
surface. I lay quietly as Brian continued to trace patterns on my naked skin
and after a minute or two, he continued speaking.
    “I was twelve the year that Claudia turned
six, and we threw a huge party for her in our backyard. Balloons, cake, games,
the whole nine yards. There were at least fifty kids at the party, and at some
point we lost track of where Claudia was. Will told me to find her and bring
her back to the party. None of us was worried because Claudia had a habit of
drifting off and finding adventure or a new friend, but in our town that wasn’t
dangerous. Everyone knew who we were and someone always brought Claudia back
home safe and sound. I scoured the entire block, but I couldn’t find her
anywhere, so I headed back to the house to see if she’d come home before I
expanded my search area. As I was headed up the front walk, I heard an
incredibly loud bang. I turned to see if Butch Jackson was backing his hot rod
out of the driveway across the street, but saw nothing, then I realized that
the bang had come from inside our house. I tore up the stairs, ripped open the
screen and ran back to my mom and Will’s bedroom…”
    Brian trailed off as he choked up. He bent
his head again and took a few deep breaths before looking up and saying,
“Claudia had taken two of her friends back to the bedroom to show them Daddy’s
“big gum,” that’s what she’d called it because we’d all laugh when she said it.
Anyway, she’d let her friend Caroline handle the gun and Caroline had
accidentally pulled the trigger. For some reason, Will hadn’t locked up the gun
or made sure the chamber was clear before he’d shoved it in the bedside drawer
and the bullet had gone straight through Claudia’s chest tearing her aorta in
half. She died almost instantly.”
    “After that my mother started drinking
pretty heavily and Will got really strict with me. By
the time I hit high school, he was waking me up at dawn to do morning workouts
with him and came in to check that I’d made my bed according to regulation
before I went to school. I’ve always joked that the military was a cake walk
for me compared to what I lived with at home.” He stopped and gave me a weak
smile, and I squeezed his hand as I smiled back at him.
    “Anyway, I haven’t been home in a couple of
years, I can’t go home. My mom is a raging alcoholic and Will is…well, he’s
Will. He ignores her drinking until she needs medical attention and then he
waits for her to dry out enough to be allowed to come home. Every time she does,
the cycle starts again and she winds up calling me to come get her because she
thinks Will is trying to kill her. I can’t go there without wanting to take a
drink myself, so I stay away.”
    “You must feel really alone,” I observed.
    “You